


A GOOD DAY

by Mikkeneko



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Aging, Alzheimer's Disease, Caretaking, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Game(s), Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 16:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5934655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even happy endings are still endings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A GOOD DAY

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kirkwallgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirkwallgirl/gifts).



It’s a good day. The air is chill where it wafts in through the windows, but it’s early yet; by noon the sun will have warmed the grassy hillside, with a soft breeze blowing from the cool shadow under the trees. Their little house and the garden plots surrounding it are tucked away in the rolling foothills, hidden from most eyes and shielded from most storms. There are neighbors within a few miles, but they don’t see them often, not unless they wish to – most days their only company are the mountain deer that roam the woods. And the sheep, of course.

Hawke snores; he always has and the years have not lessened the thunder of it any, for all that they’ve spread silver through his hair and drawn wrinkles on his skin. Anders watches him sleep until the sun creeps over their pillow and shines in his eyes; the man frowns, scrunches, making a deep snorting noise as his sleep is interrupted. He rolls over, making the bed creak beneath his weight: opens his eyes, sees Anders, and smiles.

“Oh, it’s you,” he says, sounding both surprised and pleased. “Hello again.”

He knows me today, Anders thinks. Today is a good day, then.

Anders is a healer; he always has been and the years have not lessened the power of his magic any, for all the years have blurred the line between spirit and man. But there are some things that even a spirit healer cannot fix. There are diseases so subtle that they seem to have no cause, no cure. There are maladies so insidious that Anders is not even sure it  _is_  a disease, not really; or if it is just the human body getting old.

Something has been eating away at Hawke’s mind for years now. Anders can slow the damage, can mitigate it; Hawke remains lucid and active, able to move about and live a mostly normal life. But even spirit magic cannot replace what is wholly lost, and one year after another has slipped free of Hawke’s memories, sending him further and further back into the past. Lately, he can only hold onto new memories for a few days before he loses those as well, and Anders must explain to his husband of thirty years, again, who exactly he is and why he is here.

“Good morning, my love,” he says softly in return. “Hello again to you too.”

Fortunately Hawke is still as laid-back as he ever was; he accepts the explanations without question, smiling in bemusement at the matched rings Anders displays as proof. But he remembers no more of their life together than the last few days, none of the decades spent on the run, none of the years spent in toil, in war, in victory and in defeat. He remembers none of Kirkwall. He remembers none of the Blight, nor even of Lothering; as far as Hawke knows, his mother and siblings are still alive, ensconced in their own little country farm just over the next hill.

After the first few lapses, Anders had stopped trying to break the truth to him. It was too cruel, watching him grieve their senseless deaths over and over and over again, and he would forget it again within a few days anyway. Instead he assures Hawke that they will meet his family for dinner, as they do at the beginning of each new month. A part of him still roils uneasily at the untruth; but truth, he learned many years ago, is not always a kindness.

The morning progresses as the two of them peel themselves out of bed, with many a crack and groan, and go about their daily routine. There’s breakfast, prepared by Anders and enthusiastically guzzled by Hawke – “You know all the tricks,” Hawke laughs as he scrapes up the last of the eggs – and some light cleaning to do, to keep their small household in order. By midmorning they’re both outside, enjoying the warm spring sunlight as it bathes the meadow hillside in a golden haze and puffs up the sweet scent from the grass. Messere Tomwise, the latest in a long series of barn cats, curls up near their feet to watch an unending parade of bugs dancing through the greenery.

Hawke is listing slightly even from that moderate exercise and Anders runs over him with a clinician’s eye. Not the brain, not today, he thinks; this is something simpler, something older. Scars from a battle desperately fought against a warrior twice his size, in defense of a city, in defense of a friend. “Scars acting up?” Anders asks, though it’s not really a question.

“Yeah,” Hawke says, rubbing his side under his ribs with a grimace. “Funny, even if I forget how I got them, they sure don’t forget me.”

“Terribly unfair, that,” Anders agrees. He encourages Hawke to sit, and wrestles his tunic off, to a bit of horseplay and laughter on both their parts. Then his hands are spread across the web of scars on Hawke’s back and side, laced amid the silvering wisps of hair, channeling healing magic into the old wound.

Hawke sighs in relief, and Anders thinks again about the nature of kindness, and the nature of mercy. He used to think they were one and the same; but lately he thinks that what makes a mercy is only the absence of cruelty and pain, not the presence of happiness.

Today is a good day, and he’ll hold onto it. He’ll hold onto every good day, onto every good moment of every day, even as both of their days shorten to their ends. Hawke’s periods of memory are getting shorter, he thinks, since the new year, his old scars hurting him more. Anders is a healer, but even magic has its limits, and he knows that he is close to finding the end of his.

“I don’t remember what I did to deserve you,” Hawke sighs happily, nuzzling into Anders’ neck and wrapping his arms around his waist. “But it must have been pretty spectacular.”

Anders lays his hands over Hawke’s, feeling the warmth of the other man’s skin under his own. He remembers a sky burning, a city drenched in blood, screams and swords ringing out as a champion fought with all he had to stem the tide of senseless deaths. It might have been a mercy, he often thought, that Hawke could no longer remember that night. It might have been justice, he sometimes thought, that it was up to him to remember it for them both.

“It was,” he says.

* * *

 

~end.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by kirkwallgirl/idaharra's painting "[Old Farts](http://idaharra.deviantart.com/art/Old-er-farts-587221170)." It was such a beautiful concept that I immediately knew I had to ruin it.


End file.
